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A 


VINDICATION 

OF THE RIGHT OF 


Civil Government and Self Defence $ 

A LECTURE 

Delivered at Bradford, Ms. in reply to several 


ITINERANT LECTURERS, 


ON 

sr®sfaiEUsns®<&<©<> 


BY JEREMIAH SPOFFORB. 


H 



¥ 


HAVERHILL GAZETTE PRESS, 


AD VE RTISEMENT. 


As a number of persons have for several years devoted them¬ 
selves with untiring zeal, and all the powers of rhetoric, to prove 
that all government is usurpation and tyranny, and all war, even 
in self-defence, sinful and murderous, it seems necessary that 
those who hold to civil government and self defence, should vin¬ 
dicate themselves against such absurd and scandalous imputa¬ 
tions; not that the community are in much danger of adopting 
their theories in full, but because such sentiments, set forth in 
glowing language from week to week, are in danger of making 
some impression on the minds of the young, disqualifying them 
from becoming active and useful members of society, and there¬ 
by weakening the arm of civil authority. 

Hitherto those who have held to these new and strange doc¬ 
trines have had the field almost entirely to themselves. Few of 
our public speakers or writers have noticed this class of orators, 
or more than incidentally adverted to the subject. 

The writer having held a seat in the Legislature, and for ma¬ 
ny years a commission which made it his duty to enforce the 
laws, feels that he is one of those who are thus incessantly slan¬ 
dered, vilified and abused, and unwilling to bear in silence this 
torrent of vituperation, poured forth by men of some talent, and 
whose constant practice of lecturing renders them fluent and 
expert in all the arts of sophistry, he has written the following 
pages,—leaving it to those who are especially set, for the de¬ 
fence of the truth, to defend themselves and the cause of reli¬ 
gion against those who charge them with tyranny and priest¬ 
craft, and who hold that churches and houses of worship are but 
‘remnants of Jewish superstition,’ and that religious societies of 
every denomination are to be uprooted and destroyed before they 
can begin to erect their new-fangled stale of folly, anarchy and,, 
glorious confusion. 


a 


U “ S?^5/,n A"'3ri'^® 


Supposing tiiat I address an assembly of the friends of free- 
discussion, 1 must claim their indulgence and candor. If I dis* 
pate some of the popular dogmas of the day, and call in ques¬ 
tion principles which have been anvanced with great confidence 
from this desk, and adopted by individuals present, 1 must solic¬ 
it them to hear with candor and re-examine them by the light 
of scripture and reason. 

I am aware that although I have the practice of the world on 
my side, or even going far beyond what I can approve, yet near¬ 
ly all the popular harrangues are against me. Men trained to 
the business of popular lecturing are directing the current of 
public opinion into new and untried channels, and it almost 
proves temerity and imprudence for a man to stand forth in de¬ 
fence of any opinion in Law, Physic or Divinity, which is more 
than ten years old. But I ask no favor for any sentiments or 
arguments drawn from the customs of the world, unless they 
are also sanctioned by scripture and reason. I would, there¬ 
fore entreat my audience to lay aside all pre-conceived theories, 
and examine, with me, the nature and right of Human Govern* 
merit and of Self Defence. 

It is commonly allowed that the plainest axioms of reason 
and common sense, when denied or called in question, are the 
hardest to prove, and one reason probably is that there are no 
data from which to argue that are more sure than that which is 
denied, and it now frequently happens that these apparently un¬ 
questionable principles are cavilled at or denied, merely because 
the boldness and novelty of such denial will give it currency 
with many, and because of the difficulty of proving that which 
is self-evident. 

The last age has been remarkably prolific of new and strange 
ideas. The human mind, having acquired new power of action, 
by bursting asunder the chains of despotic civil governments 
and Papal superstition, new theorists in civil and ecclesiastical 
matters are perpetually searching for new abuses to redress, 
new chains to break ; and their mistake, both in the objects they 
attempt, and their ability to accomplish their objects, is as great 
as Don Quixote’s, when be mistook a wind-mill for a giant, and 
himself for a hero. These indefatigable advocates of innova¬ 
tions, having exhausted the whole circle of new theories of gov¬ 
ernment, have come round at last to the plan spoken of in the 
last verse of the Book of Judges, when there was no king (or 
civil government) in Israel, and every man did that which was 
right in his own eyes. 

It is true that this first experiment of the no-government the¬ 
ory did not work very well, for in one case an attempt to punish 


nil instance of licentiousness in the Benjaininites, which in any 
well organized government might have been disposed of in a 
few hours, by sending the delinquents to the House of Correc¬ 
tion or the State Prison, resulted in a civil war, which caused 
the death of forty thousand men of Israel, and twenty-five thou¬ 
sand men of Benjamin. 

We are aware that this new school of ethics profess to abol¬ 
ish war, as well as government. Such scenes as occurred among 
the Israelites, say they, cannot take place, when men adopt our 
whole creed. When there are none who will fight, there can¬ 
not he war, whatever other evils may exist in the world. 

These are self-evident truths, but what reformer or philoso¬ 
pher ever had the good fortune to see all mankind adopt his 
whole theory ? Do these modern reformers expect to accom¬ 
plish by a few fine spun arguments, in which themselves are by 
no means agreed, that which the philosophers of all ages, and 
all the Caesars, and Popes, and Bonapartes of the world have 
failed to accomplish 1 —that is, to make men think or act alike. 
Vain hope ! useless speculation ! 

Every wise builder examines and measures the materials with 
which he is to operate, and so adapts his plan that with the ma¬ 
terials at his command he can bring his work to perfection and 
usefulness. It would be folly in an architect, to plan and com¬ 
mence a structure, elegant and beautiful as the Parthenon or 
St. Paul’s Church, where his workmen and materials could only 
ennable him to complete a mud-walled cottage or a log cabin.— 
Still more foolish would it be to go to work and pull down all 
the wooden houses in the land, merely because we had arrived 
at the conclusion that marble palaces are better. 

So every wise legislator or philosopher adapts his plan and 
theories to the material on which he is to operate, and the great 
question of human government is not, what state of mind ought 
all men to be in ? but, what state are they in 1 Not what gov¬ 
ernment would suit a world of perfect beings? but what kind 
of government will be most useful among a world of such be¬ 
ings as do exist ? What is best to be done to promote the peace 
and happiness of mankind, taking human nature as it is ? 

We find ourselves here a vast multitude of rational creatures, 
endowed with various degrees of reason and understanding 
—horn, according to the theory we have adopted, free and equal, 
with different and ever-varying passions, appetites and wants, 
with equal claim to the earth and thousands of articles on its 
surface, which can, from tha nature of things, only be used or 
enjoyed at all, under such rules and restrictions as shall mark 
the boundaries of each other’s rights. 

God’s right to govern the world, none here will dispute ; and 
had he seen fit to govern it in person, by his own visible pres¬ 
ence or by some intermediate order of beings superior to man, 
it might seem to us wise and proper. Had he given us the priv¬ 
ilege of saying on every question, without the possibility of a 
cavil or a doubt, thus saitli the Lord, it would he our duty and 
our privilege to say, without a murmur, even so, Lord, for so it 


seemetli good in thy sight. But such has siol been his determi¬ 
nation. He has endowed us with rational faculties, capable, 
when properly cultivated, of governing our individual selves, 
and to institute conventional governments to act on those sub¬ 
jects which concerfi the community, and so he has left us to 
work out our own destiny for good or for evil, under the teach¬ 
ings of his ordinary providence, and the imperceptable influen¬ 
ces of his spirit. When we undertake to divide the inheritance 
of this world, no voice from heaven proclaims, these tribes shall 
remain on this side of Jordan, and those shall go over and pos¬ 
sess the land. When we would enjoy those things which, from 
their nature, must be used in common, or not used at all, such 
as the paths and highways, the rivers and streams, and the great 
highway of nations, no code has been laid down by God, or at 
least no tribunal has been instituted, whose decisions mark the 
path of duty. 

Here runs a fine stream of water. A. wants it clear and open 
forever, for navigation and fisheries. 13. wants a permanent 
bridge across, for travel, and refuses to make a draw to accom¬ 
modate A’s ships, caring nothing about, navigation. C, wants 
mills. He thinks the public good and his own profit require it. 
He builds a dam, and stops A’s shipping/md fisheries, and flows 
out B’s bridge. D. wants a canal, and thinks it of more im¬ 
portance than all his neighbor’s notions. He turns the whole 
stream off through another valley, and leaves the original chan¬ 
nel dry ! Here I have made no violent or unnatural supositions. 
I have supposed no wanton or malicious mischief, but only an 
honest difference of opinions, tastes and pursuits, in some of the 
most common affairs of life, in which, without the benefit of 
fixed and permanent laws, other than what the Deity has seen 
fit to promulgate, to mark out the rights and privileges of each, 
there must he endless collision and loss of property sustained 
by those whose plans and expectations are thwarted by counter 
plans, to say nothing of the violent passions which must inevi¬ 
tably arise when the navigation of one is destroyed by the bridge 
or the dam, or both rendered useless by the canal. 

Roads, railroads and canals, never could be made or used, for 
without some tribunal previously invested with power to decide, 
it could never be agreed where they might run. Who would 
permit workmen to dig up the ground, or travellers to pass over 
the land he had selected to cultivate? 

Who would ever venture to travel on railroads if made, when 
every mischievious rogue or wanton boy had just as legal a right 
to pull up the rails as the proprietors had to put them down,and 
while there are thousands in the land who would misplace the 
rails and undermine the culverts, merely for the malicious pleas¬ 
ure of seeing the trains, with all their aristocratic freight of well 
dressed gentry, tumbled, bag and baggage, down an embank¬ 
ment or into the river? In the blessed state of no government 
there could he no law to ensure the safety of the passengers,and 
no punishment for the villains who thus sported with the feelings 
and lives of hundreds, only such as he would agree to receive! 


How will the judge, without authority, and the sheriff, with¬ 
out a warrant, proceed in arresting this wholesale murderer 1 — 
But stop ! I presume we are to have no such officers in the 
contemplated political millenium. A lecturer must be sent af¬ 
ter the scoundrel who has tumbled a train of cars into the Mer¬ 
rimack or the Mohawk, and killed forty good citizens,and woun¬ 
ded and maimed as many more ! Suppose he overtakes him, 
instead of making him prisoner, with authority to call assistance 
if necessary to secure his arrest, he commences an harrangue, 
on this wise :— 

“Hallo, there, Mr. Rogue, wont you hear me a few minutes. 
I am one of the world’s new philosophers, who have commenced 
governing the world without law. You have certainly done 
a very naughty thing, but I take you for a philosopher, as \ un¬ 
derstand you have been trying experiments. You will therefore 
certainly listen to reason now, though it was not very reasona¬ 
ble for you to do so much mischief. I want you just to walk 
down to Charlestown or Sing Sing and be locked up awhile, till 
you are sufficiently enlightened by our new philosophy to dis¬ 
continue such dangerous experiments.” 

Now let us consider, a moment, what reason promises in such 
a case. Will the perpetrator of such villany consent to go to 
prison for the safety of the community ? and can the lives of 
honest men he safe with such characters abroad 1 And that 
there are thousands of such, even in this land, facts testify, and 
no man hut a maniac can deny. 

But we are told by those pseudo philosophers, that if there 
were no government, nor laws, nor prisons, there would he no 
rogues ! in the superabundance of their charity for thieves and 
robbers, and intolerance of honest men, they say fortifying a 
city is a virtual challange to somebody to come and take it.— 
Locking our doors is only an invitation to the midnight thief to 
break them open, who would very honestly pass by if we did 
not, by bolting our doors, betray our suspicion of his honesty, 
and that a pistol reposing in quiet in the pocket of an honest 
traveller, where it would ever remain if he was unmolested, is 
the only cause why the highwayman takes his life. 

I will here only observe the irrevocable decree, Carthage must 
he destroyed, went forth when she was prostrate, unarmed, at 
the feet of her great, rival, and in our own Commonwealth the 
unarmed traveller has been robbed, and the assassin’s bludgeon 
and stuetto lias assailed the unarmed sleeping victim. 

Again, under this svstem of no law, or onlv such agreements 
ns a part of the community might make, the cultivation of the 
earth must cease, for who would cultivate or enrich it. if lie had 
no assurance of enjoying the proceeds by himself or heirs, only 
until some one stronger than 1m might choose to take it from 
him, or who would ever plant or sow, and let it depend wholly 
on the good will or honesty of all the lazy loafers in the land, 
whether he or they should enjoy the crop ? That degree of law 
which commonly obtains among savages is not sufficient to ob¬ 
tain even the common purposes of cultivation,and often with the 


7 


best of soils and the mildest skies, they live a poor starving life, 
catch the wild game, pound by hand their slender pittance of 
corn, travel their journies on foot, through bye paths and moun¬ 
tain passes, and swim the streams or stop to make their own 
boats. 

No vested rights secure the labors of the industrious for their 
own comfort, or reward the improvements of the ingenious.— 
The rivers fall useless over their rocky barriers, as they did lon<r 
ages ago, instead of being compelled to labor for the comfort of 
man. And the wild deer and the buffalo make as good roads as 
they. 

I therefore conclude that neither reason nor experience give 
countenance to these utopian plans. They gain proselytes at 
the present day, only because they have not been adopted and 
tested, on a field which gave them full scope. They live and 
grow and increase, only because the laws they condemn and the 
governments they are attempting to undermine are so tolerent 
as to secure to them the privilege of promulgating all manner of 
absurdities. But were they so far to prevail as to dissolve all 
human governments, previous to the exertion of Almighty power 
to change the hearts of men, this world would be turned to a 
wilderness, and men to savages. 

It is perfectly obvious that but for the laws they condemn,they 
would not be secure of the privilege of stating their crude pro¬ 
jects. Others of different views might abridge their liberty of 
speech, by disturbing their assemblies, or by louder vociferation, 
argument would be lost and anarchy begin. 

The foregoing considerations, and others which might be bro’t 
forward, make it plain to the meanest capacity, that reason and 
common sense give their clearest sanction to civil government ; 
but a more important question is, 

Has civil government the sanction of Divine authority ? 

We can hardly conceive it possible for any unprejudiced man, 
who has not a theory to support,to cast his eyes over any consid¬ 
erable portion of Divine Revelation, without perceiving that if 
we may credit its pages, God did, in numerous instances, ex¬ 
pressly institute and sanction human government. The patri¬ 
archal governments seem to have grown up from the circum¬ 
stances of the case, and the constantly expressed or implied 
sanction of Divine authority. 

God gave countenance and support to the authority even of 
the wicked Pharaoh, when he sent Joseph to his court, and in¬ 
spired him to foretell what was about to come to pass, whereby 
he enabled Pharaoh to save bis household and his people alive, 
and to establish his authority on a firmer basis than ever before. 
He expressly commanded Moses, and Aaron, and Joshua, to 
assume authority over the children of Israel. He countenanced 
their doings and decisions in many instances, and punished those 
who disregarded their authority with exemplary severity. We 
read of the Princes of Israel, the heads of the houses of their 
fathers, probably originating in the advice of Jethro, Moses’s 
father-in-law, to Moses, to take out of all the people able men,. 






8 


such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness, and place 
such over the people, to be rulers of thousands, and rulers of 
hundreds, and rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens, and let them 
judge the people at all seasons : and it shall he that every great 
matter they shall bring to thee, and every small matter, they 
shall judge. This advice, Moses, acting under the immediate 
direction of God, carried into effect, and thereby instituted a 
complicated system of civil government. 

Saul and David were made kings of Israel, with civil and ec¬ 
clesiastical authority, by God’s own appointment, and the whole 
tenor of the Bible shows that God sanctioned not rulers of his 
own appointment only, hut also the rulers of the nations : and 
we find no instance of his condemning them for being rulers, 
but many instances of his severe censure for being wicked ru¬ 
lers. 

Nehemiah, the Prophet, under the express command of God, 
returned from captivity, to build the walls and set up the gates 
of Jerusalem. The purpose for which these walls were builded, 
and the means of defending them, we shall consider hereafter. 
He also instituted civil government in the community he was 
sent to establish, dividing the people out to work, one tribe or 
family in one place, and another in another place, thereby es¬ 
tablishing government and order. The manner in which he or- 
dered the builders of these walis and gates to defend themselves 
and their work, I shall more appropriately consider under an¬ 
other head. 

Proverbs 8, 15.—By me kings reign and princes decree just¬ 
ice. Bv me the princes rule, and the nobles and all the judges 
of the earth. We by no means suppose this was intended to 
sanction kingly government only, or to establish an order of no- 
bilitv ; but we do understand it to be a full sanction to civil gov- 
eminent, especially to such as whither carried on by kings or 
nobles, presidents or representatives, do right and decree just¬ 
ice. The constant intercourse held by God through the Son or 
Angels, or Prophets, with the kings and rulers of the earth, di- 
rectingthem in innumerable instances how to proceed with their 
governments, commending them when they governed well, and 
censuring them when they did evil in his sight, is a direct sanc¬ 
tion to their authority when they were careful to do his will. 

It is presumed that none will deny that God, under the Old 
Testament dispensation, did establish human governments, did 
sanction human laws, and condemns the violators of them, did 
sanction parental coersive authority, and expressly commanded 
parents and magistrates to punish refractory and disobedient 
children and others, did authorise magistrates, in some cases, 
and more than seems necessary in these days, even to take the 
life of the culprit. 

All this, it is supposed, will be conceded ; but I am aware that 
there is a popular mode of getting over it all, by alleging that 
these were Old Testament times—that Christ came to introduce 
a new dispensation—peace on earth, and good will to man.— 
ft is true he did, but the question is how he went to work to es- 


9 


tablish peace. Was it by abrogating- all Jaws, and permitting 
every man to do what was right in his own eyes ? This is the 
Jast way which his infinite wisdom would ever devise to establish 
peace. Had lie come to establish confusion and every evil work, 
war, robbery and murder, he certainly could have taken no way 
so effectual. 

Now, the main question seems to be, whether Christ came in¬ 
to the world to abrogate the whole system of Jaw' and govern¬ 
ment, which had been revealed by God, and approved by him, 
throughout all nations and ages, or to carry out that system of 
law, government and order, under a new and improved dispen¬ 
sation. Christ himself says, Matt. 5: 17, “Think not that I 
am come to destroy the law or the prophets, I am not come to 
destroy but to fulfil.” Now the great discovery of modern 
reformers seems to be that Christ was wholly in a mistake as to 
the object of his mission. He says, “Until heaven and earth 
pass away, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the 
law till all be fulfilled.” They say he came to take away all 
law, all government, all coercion,all punishment, and all author¬ 
ity. if they are correct, it is a matter of infinite regret that 
Christ had not known it when he was on earth, and told us 
plainly that from that day there was to he no laws, no rulers, no 
punishments, and no authority. 

If it was the design ol Christ to abolish all governments, and 
all punishments, which his omniscience must have foreseen 
would continue in the world for at least eighteen hundred years, 
by mistake, before the discovery would be made that he design¬ 
ed to abolish them, it is extremely unfortunate that he should 
have been in the habit of using language calculated to confirm 
that mistake, and continue and confirm institutions which we 
are now told it was his design to abolish. He tells us, Luke 12: 
47, “That servant who knew his lord’s will, and prepared not 
himself, nor did according to his will, shall be beaten with ma¬ 
ny stripes.” Now here was a graat. inconsistency in our Sa¬ 
viour, if he meant to abolish all authority, to talk about beating 
a servant with many stripes. If his intention was to abolish all 
government, such language must have been a great, error, cal¬ 
culated to mislead his disciples in all ages. Had he been school¬ 
ed by our modern reformers, and adopted their construction of 
his own design, he would doubtless have cautiously avoided the 
word stripes, end said “Lectured with many words.” What be 
did say, reads certainly very much like the words of Solomon, a 
thousand years before, when he talks about using the rod. Ve¬ 
rily the Old Testament anil the New seem to harmonize better 
than some people think. The Apostle Paul does not seem to 
have imbibed any tincture of these modern, no-government prin¬ 
ciples. Read Romans 13: 1—7 inclusive. “Let every soul he 
subject to the higher powers, for there is no power but of God. 
The powers that he are ordained of God. Rulers are not a ter¬ 
ror to good works, hut to the evil. He is the minister of God 
to thee for good, and if thou do evil be afraid, for he beareth 
41 ot the sword in vain. And for this cause pay ye tribute also,” 


10 


that is, necessary taxes to support civil government. All this 
seems directly in the face and eyes of all these modern refine¬ 
ments. Paul evidently contemplates the continuance of magis¬ 
trates, government and law,—and of swords also, and of swords 
borne by magistrates, and that not in vain. 1 suppose the ob¬ 
jector here would say Paul meant the sword of the spirit. That 
cannct make sense.—Why does he talk of its being borne bv 
magistrates or rulers ? any other person has as good authority 
to use the sword of the spirit as rulers or magistrates ; and be¬ 
sides, the sword of the spirit is used only to arrest the attention 
and change the heart, and not as in verse 4, “an avenger to ex¬ 
ecute wrath upon him that doetn evil,” 

That we may the better understand the question with which 
some persons are attempting to agitate the community, I would 
observe that the denial of the right of civil government is an 
ultra but necessary emanation from the doctrine of non-resist¬ 
ance, or the denial of the right of self-defence or war, in any 
case whatever. 

Most of those who have heretofore denied the right of self-de¬ 
fence have been content to enjoy security in the midst, of well 
governed and well defended communities, and in some instances 
have doubtless secured peace to themselves by their peaceable 
demeanor, and doing to others as they would that others should 
do to them. 

But in this peaceable demeanor there is nothing peculiar to 
Quakers and Non-resistants, other communities, disposed to do 
justice, have resided peaceably, side by side, for long periods of 
time, though both professed the doctrine of repelling unprovok¬ 
ed aggression. Ft is as much in accordance with our principles 
as it can be with theirs to do equal and exact justice to all men, 
to bear and forbear, to negociate and suffer many wrongs, be¬ 
fore we would resort to force and arms.—And I here enter my 
protest against being considered the apologist of nine-tenths of 
all the wars which have desolated the earth. Indeed, every war 
is and must be wrong on one side or the other, and often on 
both. The question is not whether men may commence and 
carry on wars of ambition, revenge and conquest, but whether 
after using every endeavor for peace, afer exhausting the cup of 
reconciliation to the dregs, and even after attempting to buy off 
the enemy, the pirate, the robber, with our money, our coat, or 
our cloak, and having failed to appease them, or satisfy their av¬ 
arice,we shall rather than employ force and arms,see our fair in¬ 
heritance laid waste, our cities ravaged, and our children slain. 
The whole system, as far as self-defence is concerned, must 
stand or fall together. If a man has a right to repel, by force, 
the assassin who would plunge a stiletto into his own bosom, he 
must, of course, have a right to unite with a hundred or a thou¬ 
sand others in similar danger, to repel a hundred or a hundred 
thousand assassins. If man has a right to make defence at all, 
he has a right, and it is the most safe and humane to make it in 
the most effectual manner, as being most likely to save life, on 
his own side, but also as^being most likely to deter others from 


li 


making an attack. Humanity, as well as policy, often requite 
men, if they arm and fortify at all, to make the most effectual, 
secure and impregnable preparation for defence, and the more 
powerful and deadly an engine is which is brought to defend a 
city or fortress, ihe less likely is the place to be attacked. This 
is the fact, according to the light of all history, and paradoxical 
as it may seem, and ridiculous as it will be represented by our 
opponents, it is nevertheless a fact, that the most powerful and 
destructive engines of modern warfare have contributed vastly 
to the preservation of human life; and battles have proved much 
less bloody when fought by the thundering missiles of modern 
times, than when fought with the sword and spear, hilt to hilt 
and hand to hand. Fewer men are brought into personal col¬ 
lision, and passions and rage have much less effect in multiply¬ 
ing victims. 

I observed before that the no-government scheme was an em¬ 
anation from the non-resistance system, it is merely carrying 
a false principle out into its ultimate consequences. It is easy 
to see that if the use of force in any case whatever is denied, 
all pretension to government is a farce. Of what use is it to 
choose and pay Representatives, and Governors, and Judges, 
and Presidents, unless their laws and decisions can be carried 
into effect? A power to advise and recommend is of no weight 
except to the personal and political friends of the advisers. A 
law made under such circumstances is no law at all. 

No man obeys it unless he chooses. Government, then, on 
these principles, cease, society resolves itself into its original el¬ 
ements, and every man does just what is right in his own eyes, 

We commend the Garrisons and Wrights of the present day 
for one thing, that is their consistency. They see the absurdity, 
and abandon the idea of maintaining a government without a 
power to execute the laws on the refractory and disobedient.— 
But in avoiding the absurdity still maintained by some, that a 
government can be usefully maintained without coertiou, they 
stumble into another still more absurd, viz : that the world would 
get alongvery well without any law or government. Thus while 
we concede to them the praise of consistency, it is only consis¬ 
tency in error. Having started on false principles, they are on¬ 
ly carrying things out to their erroneous and delusive results,— 
results which, if attempted to be carried out ou a large scale, 
as men are now constituted, would convert this world first into 
one great battle field, and then into a desert. 

But no, say my opponents ; if all men adopt our sentiments 
there could of course be no fighting. That is true if all men 
adopted them and acted upon them in all cases whatever. But 
that, if destroys the whole argument. If people did not eat we 
should not want provisions,—if there was no fire, houses would 
not be burnt,—if there were no storms the sea would be always 
calm, and if all were omniscient to know, and perfect to do 
what is right, our courts, and officers, and laws, might he dis¬ 
pensed with. 

But what signifies it to build up the whole structure of society 


upon an if against certain knowledge and matter of filet, 
against the experience of all nations and ages, against common 
sense and the instincts of nature, and against the whole tenor 
of scripture. 

Nehemiah of old, when sent to restore Jerusalem, set im¬ 
mediately about rebuilding the walls and defences thereof. He 
well knew, and being a Prophet was inspired to know that to 
go and build houses and till them with good things, in a place 
surrounded by petty barbarous nations, would be only offering 
them a premium to commit iniquity, it would be offering them 
an irresistable temptation to sin. So he divided out the people 
into companies and rebuilt the walls and set up the gates. But 
he went further still,—being a prophet he discovered that To¬ 
bias and Sanballat, two of the leaders of the neighboring tribes, 
had conspired to destroy their works, and not having been in¬ 
structed by our new-light non-resistants, he prepared for de¬ 
fence. Walls would answer little purpose unless defended.— 
The enemy had only to bring each man a ladder, and they 
might scale their walls and destroy their city. He says, there¬ 
fore set I in the lower places behind the walls, and in the high¬ 
er places, I even set the people after their families, with their 
swords, and their spears, and their bows, and said to the rulers 
and to the rest of the people, be not ye afraid of them, remem¬ 
ber the Lord which is great and terrible, and fight for your 
brethren, your sons and your daughters, your wives and your 
houses. And what was the result 1 Did God frown upon their 
presumption 1 No ! he smiled and prospered them, and when 
the enemy heard that the city was well prepared for defence 
they shrunk back and went about their own affairs, and these 
walls, builded by men who had each his sword by his side, stood 
mostly in peace for more than four hundred years, and when 
the time of their destruction arrived, Christ being then on earth, 
gave no intimation to the inhabitants of Jerusalem that it would 
be wrong to defend the city, but knowing that it was to be de¬ 
stroyed, kindly warned his disciples to flee to the mountains. 

We are frequently told, at the present day, that this arming 
for defence is the very thing, if not the only thing that invites 
and causes aggression. This may be the case under certain 
circumstances, but is far from being a general rule. Christ did 
not think so when he said, Luke 11 : 21, When the strong man 
armed keeps his house his goods are in peace, but when a strong¬ 
er than he cometh, that is when he is comparatively weak and 
defenceless, then the stronger will take away his armor and 
spoil his goods. When some individual or petty power arms 
and boasts, in bravado, it doubtless has some tendency to draw 
down the resentment of some knight errant, or testy neighbor¬ 
ing power, but amidst the shaking of the nations, which within 
the last forty years has made Europe one vast field of blood,the 
only power which has enjoyed peace within its borders, the on¬ 
ly one whose fire-sides and domestic altars have not been viola* 
ted by a ruthless soldiery, has been that power whose rockT 
bound coast has frowned with artillery and bristled with stqe], 


While Germany, Spain, Switzerland and Italy, who threw down 
their arms and received the enemy with the smile of friendship 
and the fraternal embrace, were doomed to see their cities pil¬ 
laged, their wives and daughters violated, and their fields laid 
waste, no hostile loot has invaded the British Isles. There, 
surrounded with their munitions of defence, and with their 
watchmen upon the walls, every one ha^ sat under his own vine 
and fig tree, having none to molest or make him afraid. 

I lately noticed in a non-resistant publication, the little re¬ 
public of St, Marino, which is said to have existed 1100 years 
in the midst of warlike neighbors, produced as an instance of 
the efficacy of peace principles in preserving a State. Now it 
happens quite unfortunately for the argument that St. Marino 
never had any such principles. Morse’s Gazetteer says, it is a 
small city, capital of a little republic of the same name, having 
6000 inhabitants, three castles, and under the protection of the 
Pope. Bonaparte, disdaining to meddle with the Liliputian 
Empire, made them a present of several cannon, which, lor 
ought that we hear, were thankfully received. Thus their safe¬ 
ty is accounted for on very different principles, viz : the protec¬ 
tion of the Pope, one of the most powerful sovereigns of Eu¬ 
rope, and their own castles, 

A popular way of arguing against government and force, in 
any case, is to gather up and portray in strong colors, the ex¬ 
pense and vexations of lawsuits, and the terrible devastations of 
armies. Tqere are, doubtless, more lawsuits and battles than 
can be justified ! indeed, in every case there must be blame on 
one side or both ; but while they magnify the evil of a single 
lawsuit* which perhaps cost five hundred dollars to decide a case 
of fifty, it may fairly be brought in offset, that the decision in 
that case, when finally obtained, decides a thousand other cases 
which rest on the same principles, so that without further ex¬ 
pense the parties and others are secured in the quiet possession 
of millions for all future time. 

I cannot recollact a lawsuit in our county for many years, in¬ 
volving the title to real estate, while we have thousands of pro¬ 
prietors of contiguous territory, and all this certainty of pos¬ 
session is because that volumes of decisions which have been 
accumulating for ten centuries, and the statute law of our own 
land, decide about every possible case beforehand. So here we 
have thousands of people dwelling each on his own little do¬ 
main, defended therein by the laws and the wdiole power of the 
State, and not one in a thousand is ever called to defend his 
property by force or by a lawsuit. 

A great battle is fought,—terrible indeed when we view only 
the scenes of the bloody day ; but the immense usefulness some¬ 
times even reconciles a reasonable mind to the sacrifice. Take 
for instanoe. In 1588, Philip of Spain, under the direction of 
the Pope, and with the assistance of all the Catholic countries 
of the continent, prepared to invade England, for the express 
purpose of putting down the Protestant Government, and es¬ 
tablishing Popery. Every thing was put on hoard the fleet to 




ensure success. Artillery to batter down the fortresses, armies 
to fight the battles, and racks, and screws, and various engines 
of torture, in addition to tire and sword, with which to compel 
the whole people to become Roman Catholics. The danger was 
iminent. No whining about'receiving such a force, and coming 
for such a purpose, in love, and without arms, can possibly be 
proposed by any person of common sense. 'They were “stern 
murderers, steady to their purpose.” The English had no al¬ 
ternative but to resist by the best means in their power, or be¬ 
come Roman Catholics, and tributaries to the Rope, or give 
up their own bodies to die under these torturing racks, and leave 
their helpless orphans to be bayoneted, burnt, or brought up 
Roman Catholics, as the malice, caprice or superstition of the 
enemy might dictate. Suppose they had met them without arms, 
and with smiles and “bread and cheese.” Could that have 
changed the purpose of Philip or the Pope? They had fitted 
up a grand armament to enlarge the papal dominion. They 
had expended millions in the apparatus of battles and torture, 
and were old artists in the work of conversion by fire and sword. 
Would they give up their purpose for a smile, or be bought off 
for a dinner ? No honest man can argue thus, and none but an 
idiot believe any such thing. Our wise ancestors chose the 
first alternative as the least evil. They decided to meet the cru¬ 
el invaders on the ocean, while they were cooped up in their 
vessels, before they had spread like locusts over the land. They 
said the contest shall not he in our towns and villages, or among 
our wives and children ; nor shall it be an useless and passive 
contest how much they can inflict and how much we can en¬ 
dure,but with the blessing of heaven we will destroy these en¬ 
gines of torture before they pollute our land, and sink the fleet 
laden with a nation’s destruction. The battle was faught, the 
victory was won, the nation was saved, and these torturing en¬ 
gines have long harmlessly reposed in the Tower of London.— 
Now paint the horrors of the battle in any colors you please, 
and it is impossible to match a twentieth part of the evil of per¬ 
mitting such an army to land for such a purpose. Had they 
been permitted to land without resistance, the consequences, 
beyotid all reasonable doubt, must have been the martyrdom of 
thousands on the rack and at the stake, a conquering soldiery 
ravaging every city and pillaging every house. Nor could the 
consequences have ended with that generation,—even at this 
day England would have been a Catholic country, and we their 
offspring should probably have resembed the religious bigots 
and political anarchists of South America. 

It is no stretch of imagination to suppose that all the civil 
and religious liberty now enjoyed in England or America, even 
the liberty of my opponents to advance their crude notions,hung 
on the fate of the Spanish Armada. 

The most terrible events are often fraught with almost infi¬ 
nite good. The burning of Moscow, an event terrible in itself, 
by depriving the invaders of winter quarters, proved the salva¬ 
tion ol Russia, and commenced that series of events which were 




15 


consummated in the pacification of Europe for twenty-seven 
years past, and we hope a century to come. 

\Y nrs and battles are bad enough without any exaggeration 
W ould to heaven that men’s reason might be so improved, and 
their angry passions so restrained,that they may never more take 
place. But should the dreadful alternative ever be ours, to send 
out our armed ships, and man our fortifications to intimidate or 
repel an invading foe,—or to see our land overspread with a 
hundred thousand licentious soldiery, perambulating our streets, 
breaking into our houses, abusing our families, and tossing our 
infants on the points of their bayonets, as peaceful Germany 
has witnessed in our own day, from soldiers whom she received 
with open arms as the champions of liberty and the friends of 
all people,—[ say, rather than that such scenes should be wit¬ 
nessed in our cities and towns, let the thunder of our artillerv 
rock our floating caslles and shake our whole coast. Nature 
demands it,—humanity requires it, and our holy religion sanc¬ 
tions it. 

We may as well oppose the government of God as displayed 
in the natural world, because it sometimes produces lightnings, 
earthquakes and innundations, ns to oppose civil government 
because it sometimes produces war or death. Franklin did not, 
like an Atheist 1 once met with, curse the whole system of na¬ 
ture because of its incidental evils, but went to work to lessen 
those evils, and peacefully and harmlessly conduct the electrici¬ 
ty from the clouds. So we, instead of attempting to explode 
the whole system of divine and human government for G009 
years, should endeaver to lessen the incidental evils, to draw off 
the angry passions of men, and intercept and disperse the gath¬ 
ering cloud, which might otherwise burst in the thunderbolt of 
war. I am for peace, but the way to secure it is to cause all 
men to do justice. If you sit peaceably under your own fig- 
tree, and I under mine, there can be no war between us,—and 
so I would have every man do, and then there will be universal 
peace, and such peace we shall have when God introduces that 
happy era, when there shall be nothing to hurt or destroy in all 
his holy mountain,—but, in the mean time, if you were so un¬ 
reasonably wicked as to leave yoor peaceful home, to act the 
midnight assissin in mine, it might be well for you to find that, 
like the Prophet Nehemiah. I had set a watch, or that, like the 
strong man armed, implicitly approved by our Savior, I kept 
my house, and prevented you from committing such enormous 
crimes. 

There is one scripture argument which I have not noticed.— 
Christ said, if a man smite thee on the one cheek turn to him 
the other also, and if a man sue thee at the law and take away 
thy coat, let him have thy cloak also. The non-resistants here 
insist on understanding this passage literally, just as Christ de¬ 
livered it; but we may just as well understand other parts of 
the same chapter literally. What will they say to cutting off a 
right hand, because it had done something that the owner now 
disapproves, or of plucking out an eye because it had conveyed 





to the mind some offensive sight. I may just as well insist that 
the careless servant shall be beaten with many stripes, and call 
you to erect whipping posts at every corner, and purchase your 
whips, and lay on many stripes whenever any one of us who 
happens to be in a serving capacity does not fulfil bis master’s 
will. 

But the truth is, neither is to be understood literally. One is 
a general precept of forbearance, long suffering and forgiving 
one another in love, and the other an assurance that wilful neg¬ 
lect of duty will be punished, either in this life or the life to 
come. 

One of the characteristics of the present age is to go all up¬ 
on extremes. Many people are like the improvident farmer, 
who detroyed all his oaks and apple trees because he had got 
into a ferment about Lombardy poplars and mulberry trees.— 
Or like refractory horses, who jerk first one way, then the oth¬ 
er, but will never jog on an easy, useful pace,—they either stand 
still or run full speed, reckless of consequences. Like John 
Gilpen’s horse, so humorously immortalized by Cowpcr, he gal¬ 
loped hack and forth from London to Ware, but would never 
stop at Edmonton, where his master had engaged to dine. 

Away went Gilpen, neck or nought, 

Away went hat and wig ; 

He little thought, when he set out, 

Of running such a rig. 

That is the case of thousands at the present day. They little 
thought, when they set out, where they should land. When 
the French people started to reform abuses in Government, they 
little thought of cutting off their king’s head, and the heads of 
his wife and sister,—but they did it. They never intended to 
set up in his stead those infernal tyrants, Danton, Marat and 
Robespiere,—hut they did it. And the murdering null which 
they invented to cut off the heads of the king and his family, 
they never intended for their own necks, hut it was found to 
work just as well on the inventors as on those they were pleased 
to style aristocrats. The ragged Sans Culotts could no more 
tolerate each other’s raving nonsense than they could the pomp 
of courts and pride of kings. And without kings, and without 
government, and without law, they whet up their great choping 
knife to behead each other. Behead ! did I say *? Ah, no ! the 
guilotine was mostly used when they hetd some pretence to gov¬ 
ernment, and some form of trial, but in their most perfect state 
of no-government, those who were “suspected of being suspi¬ 
cious” were hung up by the neck to the nearest lamp-post,with¬ 
out judge or jury. 

I would by no means suppose that all who have adopted these 
sentiments of no-government and non-resistance design such 
consequences as I have pourtrayed, but to my mind they are as 
certain as the laws of nature and the decrees of God. 

H 173 





















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